Woman in wheelchair fatally hit by car remembered for independence

Thu Phan was struck by a car while crossing a street in her wheelchair in downtown S.F.

Thu Phan was struck by a car while crossing a street in her wheelchair in downtown S.F.

Photo: Brad Trippe

Photo: Brad Trippe

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Thu Phan was struck by a car while crossing a street in her wheelchair in downtown S.F.

Thu Phan was struck by a car while crossing a street in her wheelchair in downtown S.F.

Photo: Brad Trippe

Woman in wheelchair fatally hit by car remembered for independence

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The 38-year-old Berkeley woman who died over the weekend after a city of San Francisco vehicle crashed into her wheelchair as she crossed a street was a public employee and leader in the disabled community, family and colleagues said Tuesday.

Thu Phan, a UC Berkeley alumna and Department of Labor employee, was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, commonly known as brittle-bone disease. On her way to work Friday morning, while operating her electric wheelchair, Phan was hit by a worker on official business for the city Department of Public Health in the intersection of Market and Seventh streets.

“The phone rang, and that was normal and that’s what I expected,” said her fiance, Brad Trippe, who spoke with Phan half a dozen times every day. “I said, ‘Hi, sweetie,’ and it was this man’s voice, and I immediately got this feeling of dread.”

For the first five hours after the collision, Phan was lucid, Trippe said, but doctors soon realized she had sustained head trauma, and her condition deteriorated. A surgery attempt was not successful, and she died Saturday surrounded by dozens of family members and friends, who spilled into the San Francisco General Hospital waiting room and corridors.

Police said at the scene and continued to say Tuesday that although she was knocked to the ground by the collision, her injuries did not appear life threatening. The driver — who cooperated during the investigation — was making a left turn from Seventh onto Market, which was a legal move because of the car’s exempt license plate, according to Officer Albie Esparza, a police spokesman.

“That area of downtown is kind of confused from a traffic standpoint, so you take your life in your hands crossing the street,” said John Parman, an acquaintance of Phan, adding that her death should have never happened.

The oldest of six siblings, Phan emigrated at age 2 as a refugee from Vietnam with her parents, who wanted to give her more opportunities in the United States because of her bone condition. The family eventually settled in Stockton, where Phan and her younger brothers and sisters were raised.

Roslyn Samorano, Phan’s friend of 30 years, recalled teachers telling her in elementary school not to touch Phan “because she would break.” But once the two found a way to push each other in a wagon, they were inseparable.

“As far as her chair would allow her to go, we would go there together,” Samorano said. “We were going to grow old together and be two little old ladies in our wheelchairs.”

Her siblings remembered that at age 4, Phan saved their lives. One of her brothers set a closet on fire, and as the flames soared, she screamed for help. Their mother and aunt heard her yelling and rushed into the room with buckets of water.

Phan went on to obtain her associate’s degree from San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton before studying sociology at UC Berkeley. For the last eight years, she worked as an accounting technician at the Department of Labor’s San Francisco office while living in Berkeley.

She was a leader in the nonprofit organization Hand in Hand, which supports the rights of domestic workers, such as home attendants. Officials of the group noted she was an advocate in the domestic-worker movement, once giving testimony in support of Assembly Bill 241, which created labor standards and solidified rights for such employees.

A funeral will be held Saturday from 2 to 7 p.m. in Cherokee Memorial Park’s Chapel of Flowers in Lodi (San Joaquin County).